:quality(75)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/elcomercio/XUAQKFHDIZGXVNPFU4GJ6HCFPQ.jpg "Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver achieve divorce after 10 years of proceedings")
Former California Governor and Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger and journalist and philanthropist Maria Shriver completed their divorce this week, more than a decade after she filed a request to end a 25-year marriage, local media reported Wednesday.
A Los Angeles court approved the divorce in a private hearing on Tuesday, while a judge had approved the property separation agreement earlier this month, the “Los Angeles Times” reported today.
Schwarzenegger and Shriver formed one of the most popular couples in the United States for years after the actor managed to win over the niece of US President John F. Kennedy (1917-1963). The couple married in 1986 and had four children (Katherine, Christina, Patrick, and Christopher).
Although Shriver filed for divorce in 2011, it was not until a year later that the scandal broke out and the former governor acknowledged that in 1997 he had had a child with Guatemalan Mildred Patricia Baena, a domestic employee who worked for his family for two decades.
That child was born a few days after Shriver gave birth to Schwarzenegger’s second recognized male child, Patrick. At that time the actor defended himself arguing that for years he did not know that he was the father of Baena’s child.
Schwarzenegger himself acknowledged then that he informed his wife of the matter after leaving the position of governor of California.
The protagonist of blockbusters such as “Conan the Barbarian” or the film series “Terminator” was elected Governor of California in 2003, representing the Republican Party, and ended his term in 2011.
The couple ended up handing over the complicated divorce to a private judge. According to the TMZ portal, the couple’s properties were worth around $ 400 million and they had no prenuptial agreement.